


Much Ado About Majors

by Timballisto



Series: carmilla one shots [3]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Gen, cello is hot okay, musicmajor!carm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:10:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3367271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timballisto/pseuds/Timballisto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla has studied a lot of things, but music has a special place in her heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She doesn’t really think people appreciate how much times have changed since she… passed.

Carmilla remembers with fading clarity the first time she ever stepped foot on the campus of Silas University. It was 1928, and for the very first time, she was getting a real college education. It had seemed like the sky was the limit.

(Of course, beyond that first, shining moment, Carmilla remembered that year as a terrible one. There was nothing worse than getting an education only to be told you were too stupid to use it properly. She is 90% certain that the few classmates with those kind of opinions that lived through that year went on to create Zeta Omega Mu)

She left with a bachelors in English, waited twenty years, and then came back. This time she fought her way into the chemistry program. She emerged, bloodied (none of it hers, naturally), but victorious, with a masters in chemistry.

She repeated the process as many times as she dared; if nothing else it was something that filled the empty hours of eternity that stretched before her.

The exception was her tenure as a music major.

She both loved and hated that time with a passion that she rarely seemed to possess anymore. Music made her feel alive in a way that she hadn’t been in over a century. It made her itch, like her heart had skipped a beat even though it sat cold and still in her chest.

In the comfort of her shared room, Carmilla drew her fingers over the thick steel strings of her cello. There was a fine coat of dust on the lacquered wood, but when she drew her bow across the strings the sound that it produced was rich and deep. The vibrations buzzed in her breastbone.

It was pleasant. It reminded her of Laura.

Carmilla pulled her bow across the strings and began to play.


	2. Chapter 2

In their earlier interactions, before Carmilla had become inexplicably soft towards Laura, they’d had a stilted conversation about majors. Purely to fill the silence (and maybe also to get some video footage of Carmilla actually sharing personal details). If it could be called a conversation.

"So, uh, what do you major in?

"What do you major in?”

"I asked you first."

"Music."

And then Carmilla had promptly put her earphones in and ignored Laura for the rest of the day. And then the whole blood milk thing happened and things had escalated to the point where Carmilla’s major was the last thing on Laura’s mind.

Until she apparently walked right into Carmilla’s practice session. Laura wasn’t even paying attention to begin with—her nose was stuck in the book that Danny had recommended her to read. She walked right into the dorm, almost missing the first deep tones from the instrument cradled in Carmilla’s arms.

Laura looked up and blinked, surprised. Carmilla’s back was to the door, which is why the other girl probably didn’t immediately stop playing to sneer out something cynical. Instead, Carmilla’s cheek pressed against the neck of her cello and drew the bow long and slow across the strings; her fingers moved into a fluid set of scales before settling in the ready position.

Laura almost held her breath.

The creases of Carmilla’s shirt pulled tight across the other girls’ shoulders as she moved into what Laura assumed was the beginning of whatever Carmilla was playing. The tune was slow and mournful, more of a funeral dirge than a jig. 

It gave Laura a strange taste in her mouth, like nostalgia mixed with the scent of her old house heavy on her tongue. It felt familiar, and Laura felt a strange sick longing for her childhood deep in her gut.

Carmilla’s neck lolled on her shoulders with the slide of her fingers down the fingerboard, and for some reason, the smooth line the extended from her ear to her shoulder made Laura’s breath come short,

The music ended on a single, ringing note; when it was over, Laura couldn’t contain the sigh of both regret and relief. 

She turned, and went back the way she came.


End file.
